Indian-origin journalists play anchor role in Saddam coverage

Coverage of Saddam Hussein's execution was the anchor role played by South Asian and Indian origin journalists.

An interesting aspect of the global media coverage of Saddam Hussein's execution was the anchor role played by South Asian and Indian origin journalists.

The execution story for a number of leading news channels and newspapers in the Western media carries bylines with Indian or South Asian names.

"On at least three major US media outlets, the story is being told, in a major part, by South Asian journalists. I can't think of a precedent for this," said Sree Srinivasan of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) and Dean of Students, Columbia Graduate College of Journalism.

CNN's Aneesh Raman was the first to announce to a US audience that Saddam had been executed, quoting Arab TV.

The lead story in the Washington Post is by its Baghdad correspondent Sudarsan Raghavan.

The lead story on Time magazine's website is by Baghdad correspondent Aparisim "Bobby" Ghosh.

According to a report in the South Asian Journalists Association website, Hari Sreenivasan, co-anchor of ABC World News Now, will be anchoring some of the coverage.

Reena Ninan, former Baghdad correspondent of Fox News Channel, covered the story Saturday.

Riz Khan, Washington anchor for Al-Jazeera International, is anchoring some of the coverage.

Nisid Hajari, foreign editor of Newsweek, is editing part of the coverage.

Romesh Ratnesar, foreign editor of Time, is editing part of the coverage.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of the highly praised book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone" and former Baghdad bureau chief of the Washington Post, is also doing part of the coverage as he moves into a new, specially-created Iraq-oriented beat out of Washington.

Adi Raval, senior White House producer, will be covering the story for BBC out of Washington, while Deen Karim is covering the story for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp in Toronto.